Top all-time · #7098
Paul Tarvydas
Personal blog · programmingsimplicity.substack.comprogramming
Paul Tarvydas writes Programming Simplicity, a personal blog at programmingsimplicity.substack.com about programming. Since 2024, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 22 times, most often “What Unix pipelines got right and how we can do better”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this Substack for articles arguing about type checking in programming, including a continuation article discussed in one HN thread.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Exploring simplicity in programming.
Most-linked posts?
- What Unix pipelines got right and how we can do better2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-10-19
What Hacker News says?
Author's continuation article at https://programmingsimplicity.substack.com/p/type-checking-c... clearly shows that the input and output ports he can think of are all "string". If I felt snarky, I'd say "This is your brain on Javascript".
Comment linking /p/type-checking-continued
on “Type checking is a symptom, not a solution”Submitted Hardware Stockholm Syndrome as a story · 106 points
HN discussionSubmitted Type checking is a symptom, not a solution as a story · 68 points
HN discussionSubmitted We Lost Something: 1970s REPLs Were Better Than Modern Development Environments as a story · 47 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Spherical Cows of Programming as a story · 31 points
HN discussionSubmitted What Unix pipelines got right and how we can do better as a story · 18 points
HN discussionSubmitted Experiment – Projectional Viewer as a story · 17 points
HN discussionSubmitted Stop Digging and Start Building: Why We Need Lego Parts, Not Deeper Type Systems as a story · 14 points
HN discussionSubmitted Opinions About Compiler Building as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Gem in S/SL: Why Dataless Languages Matter as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted What Unix Pipelines Got Right (and How We Can Do Better) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why do we need operating systems? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Skipping with OhmJS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Languages That Stretch Your DI Capabilities and Imagination as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why Do We Use Whitespace to Separate Identifiers in Programming Languages? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Smallness as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Simplification and Two Kinds of Code as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Parts Based Programming Kernel as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Viewing Forth as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Compiler in 2024 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Single-Paradigm vs. Multi-Paradigm Thinking (Slight Return) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Rhetorical questions about why programs are not smaller as a story · 1 points
HN discussion